1. Technical Field
This application relates to a beverage bottling plant with a beverage bottle closing machine for applying a screw-top bottle closure to a beverage bottle, which screw-top bottle closure is designed to essentially prevent or minimize the tampering thereof. This application further relates to a combination of a tamper-evident closure and a container opening with an opening neck that preferably has a thread and a closure cap that can be screwed onto the tread, which cap has, on its lower end, a tamper-evident ring which is connected with the closure cap by means of a plurality of shear webs that are distributed around its periphery, whereby a plurality of ratchets are located on the cylindrical surface of the tamper-evident ring and are engaged with locking teeth that are molded on the opening neck so that the screwed-on closure cap can be removed only by shearing off the shear webs from the opening neck,
2. Background Information
In the sale of beverages such as soft drinks, for example, but also of liquid food products such as milk, for example, a majority of the beverages are sold in bottles. Bottles made of plastic such as PET, HDPE etc. that can be closed with a screw top account for a significant share of the market.
One disadvantage of simple configurations of screw tops is that they can be opened and closed again without this process being detectable by the consumer before the beverage is consumed.
On one hand, bottles that have been opened without the consumer's knowledge can be tampered with, and on the other hand, when the bottle is opened pathogenic microorganisms can get into the beverage or the bottled liquid. Because this opening represents a health hazard, it is desirable to clearly indicate whether or not a screw top has been opened.
For this purpose, numerous configurations of what are termed tamper-evident closures have been presented in the past. A large percentage of these closures consist of screw tops with a safety ring which separates from the threaded portion of the closure when the closure is opened.
The prior art discloses how screw tops with a safety ring and/or a sealing system between the bottle and the cap can be realized so that an axial seal is created directly on the end surface of a ring-shaped edge or the mouth of a bottle.
For this purpose, soft or flexible seal means are introduced in the area in question of the cap of a screw closure and the safety ring is provided with ratchet teeth that are oriented radially or axially. As the cap is screwed onto the bottle, these ratchet teeth slide along locking teeth which are located in the cylindrical surface of the bottle and lock in place, in the manner of a ratchet, in the position they have reached.
The objective of configurations of this type is to keep the angle of rotation by which the screw closure can be opened without the safety ring detaching from the cap as small as possible.
A configuration of this type was presented by DE 699 16 520 T2, for example. This publication of the prior art shows a combination of bottle mouth and screw closure with a safety ring, whereby the locking teeth and ratchets are present in different numbers. This publication also shows a bottle mouth in which the locking teeth are located not over the entire periphery of the bottle mouth but only in two partial segments.
The prior art also teaches a tamper-proof closure of the type described in German Utility Model 80 01 216. On this tamper-proof closure, the ratchet teeth are particularly long, so that they have essentially the form and function of a ratchet pawl.
Practical tests, however, have shown that in the configurations of the prior art of screw tops with a safety ring, it is possible to turn the screw cap by a certain angle of rotation without separating the safety ring from the threaded portion of the closure.
It has also been shown that this angle of rotation can be very large, in particular on bottles that, on account of the process used in their manufacture, do not have a calibrated mouth area, i.e. one that is not manufactured to very close tolerances in terms of shape and dimensions—such as bottles made of HDPE, for example.
In such cases it is even possible to open screw tops far enough for the seal elements of the screw top to break contact with the sealing surfaces provided on the bottle mouth for the purpose, as a result of which any CO2 that is contained in the bottle can escape from it. This disadvantage also creates the conditions for the potential contamination of the liquid inside the bottle.